If I told you you could walk into a local Department of Motor Vehicles office to renew your registration and be out the door less than five minutes, would you believe it?

Believe it.

Not only that, you won't have to talk to a soul inside the DMV while you are getting your business done.

Here's how: In select offices around the state, the DMV has installed ATM-like kiosks that will process your vehicle registration, accept your payment, and spew out a new registration, complete with the sticker for your license plate.

Launched in phases in 2011, the 35 blue and yellow terminals are mostly located in Southern California offices, according to Michael J. Marando, DMV spokesman in Sacramento. Locally the kiosks can be found in DMV offices locate in El Cajon, Chula Vista and Oceanside, and San Diego offices in Clairemont and San Ysidro.

"The new terminals not only produce the plate decals, but the registration cards, in less than one minute," said Marando.

DMV is pursuing automation of its services in a number of areas in a effort to improve the speed of customer service, according to Marando, including online appointments, vehicle registrations and license renewals at www.dmv.ca.gov.

Customers seem to be embracing automation. The first kiosk was installed in Sacramento in October 2010 and after a six-month shakedown the agency began installing them in 33 other offices around the state. In the roll-out year 2011, the terminals recorded 464,000 transactions, Marando said.

In December, the San Ysidro office averaged 104 registration transactions per day; San Diego Clairemont averages 73 and El Cajon averages 99, according to Marando.

"We’re crunching the numbers on them now," he said. "Our plan now is to conduct analysis on usage, how customers are receiving them, types of transactions, etc.

"The 35th terminal was installed just before Christmas, so we are taking a deliberative look at their effectiveness. But the early status suggest they are immensely popular."

The DMV serves about 30 million customers a year.

The touch screen terminals can be used in either English or Spanish and accept cash, checks, credit or debit cards.

The machines are a bit limited. Transactions can be made only for registration renewal for autos, motorcycles, pickups, commercial vehicles that do not pay Commercial Vehicle registration Act fees and coach and park model trailers.

If you are no longer using a vehicle you can use the terminal to file for Planned Non-Operation Status.

For registration renewals, customers need bring only their renewal notice or their current registration.